Effect of teaching context and tutor workshop on tutorial skills

Abstract

Effective faculty development workshops are essential to develop and sustain the quality of faculty's teaching. In an integrated problem-based curriculum, tutors expressed the needs to further develop their skills in facilitating students' content learning and small-group functioning. Based on the authors' prior observations that tutors' performance depends on their teaching context, a workshop was designed not only tailored to the tutors' needs but also organized within their respective teaching unit. The purposes of this study are (1) to evaluate whether this workshop is effective and improves tutors' teaching skills, and (2) to assess whether workshop effectiveness depends on tutors' performance before the workshop and on their teaching unit environment. Workshop effectiveness was assessed using (a) tutors' perception of workshop usefulness and of their improvement in tutorial skills, and (b) students' ratings of tutor performance before and after the workshop. In addition, an analysis of variance model was designed to analyse how tutors' performance before the workshop and their teaching unit influence workshop effectiveness. Tutors judged the workshop as helpful in providing them with new teaching strategies and reported having improved their tutorial skills. Workshop attendance enhanced students' ratings of tutors' knowledge of problem content and ability to guide their learning. This improvement was also long-lasting. The workshop effect on tutor performance was relative: it varied across teaching units and was higher for tutors with low scores before the workshop. A workshop tailored to tutors' needs and adapted to their teaching unit improves their tutorial skills. Its effectiveness is, however, influenced by tutors' level of performance before the workshop and by the environment of their teaching unit. Thus, to be efficient, the design of a workshop should consider not only individual tutors' needs, but also the background of their teaching units, with special attention to their internal organization and tutor group functioning.

Tutor Training, Evaluation Criteria and Teaching Environment Influence Students’ Ratings of Tutor Feedback in Problem-Based Learning

“…The outcomes of these two parts are described in another paper (Baroffio et al, 2006). A third part, lasting about one hour, consisted of a brief intervention on different aspects of giving feedback.…”

“…Second, we tested whether a more specific formulation of our evaluation item, might enable students to better recognize feedback when received (hypothesis b). Finally, we explored the relative importance of the tutors' teaching units that may influence students' ratings of tutors (Baroffio et al, 2006) (hypothesis c). We found that tutors rated as effective by students on year 1 improved after the teaching intervention, while those rated as unsatisfactory did not progress.…”

Características do Tutor Efetivo em ABP – Uma Revisão de Literatura

“…Por outro lado, Baroffio et al 42 demonstraram que estraté-gias de desenvolvimento docente com foco nas necessidades e dificuldades identificadas pelos tutores foram capazes de melhorar os escores de desempenho de docentes mesmo a longo prazo, principalmente para aqueles com escores pré-instrucionais mais baixos. Em estudo posterior, analisando a habilidade em oferta de feedback, Baroffio et al 43 confirmaram os efeitos benéficos do treinamento na melhora do desempenho dos tutores, ressaltando outros componentes importantes, como a clareza de critérios utilizados nos instrumentos de avaliação.…”

Success of a Faculty Development Program for Teachers at the Mayo Clinic

“…Litzelman et al 14 found that teachers with low learner baseline ratings showed poor improvement in teaching performance after receiving feedback, compared to teachers with high baseline ratings. In contrast, Baroffio et al 15 found that a faculty development workshop for instructors teaching practice-based learning and improvement had a greater effect on teachers with low baseline scores.…”